Ha! Quite an trail of articles.
The crux of it seems to be Jo Bates paper, which I haven't read yet.
http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/845/916
(queued for later reading)
Tom Slee quotes it:
<< Further, whilst democratic ends are claimed in the desire to enable
"the public" to hold "the state" to account via these measures, there
is an issue in utilising a dichotomy between the state and a notion of
'the public' which does not differentiate between citizens and
commercial interests… The construction… encourages those attracted to
civic engagement into an embrace of solidarity with profit seeking
interests, distanced from the ever suspect notion of the state." >>
At first glance, I think the part that has "got lost" is cynicism
about non-state actors.
Original motivations of mySociety et al
---------------------------------------
The people who started FaxYourMP/Public Whip/mySociety et al 10 years
ago can be usefully split into two motivations which match the left
and right side of Tom Slee's diagram.
However, I think those original motivations each differ in vital
respects from Tom Slee's definitions of open data motivations.
1. Usability. He calls it "service delivery", I think it is broader
than what you'd typically think of as a service. (For example, I think
that TheyWorkForYou is improving "service delivery" of a basic state
function, communicating what Parliament is doing, rather than some
special "transparency" function)
2. Disruption. He calls it "transparency". It's oh so much more than
that. Radicals such as Julian and Stef have always been, in my view,
looking for places where technology can tilt and fundamentally alter
current distorted power relationships. TheyWorkForYou was but one
attempt at that (the aim was to disrupt pay-for-lobbying by making
simliar tools available for free). There are other examples that have
nothing to do with "transparency".
As FixMyTransport (which is largely about private transpart companies)
shows, the usability-motivated people are just as pissed off with
unusable non-Government services. Heck, Matthew's TrainTimes.org.uk
and Odeon sites showed that right from the start.
As OpenCorporates shows, the disruption-minded people are just as
interested in disrupting power structures in non-Government actors.
On the need for a new movement
------------------------------
In short, I broadly agree with Tom Slee, even though I disagree with
many of his details (in particular his reactionary view of both the
left and business).
We need something broader than the Open Data movement. I like the Open
Data movement, and I think more Open Data is important. But there is
much more than open data even within the narrow confines of how new
communications technology alter society.
I'd much rather a mySociety or FaxYourMP style movement existed, which
added to the open data mix two things:
1) Usability improvements in general.
2) Disruption of entrenched power structures in general.
The trouble with it is it is that it is quite a hard concept/culture
to convey. I think it is well defined, at least within the heads of
those of us who have tried and succeeded, or are trying and
succeeding, to make it matter. We just haven't conveyed that
definition.
Open Data is a much simpler concept. Although it captures what
mySociety does, I always found this phrase quite clumsy:
"build websites that give people simple, tangible benefits in the
civic and community aspects of their lives"
http://www.mysociety.org/about/
What's needed is a simple way to convey that. One which gets picked up
and discussed in the political culture generally.
Or maybe we don't need that, we just need to remind ourselves what
we're doing, and do more radical new things.
Just as TheyWorkForYou's launch nearly 10 years ago has opened up the
representative-democracy transparency agenda in an explosive burst
still echoing round the world...
What other things and other agendas can similarly be opened up?
(Things like ElectionLeaflets, OpenCorporates, FixMyTransport are
attempts. Any others, that might have the scale of TheyWorkForYou in
echoing knock on effects?)
Francis
On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 03:50:30PM -0700, Tom Steinberg wrote:
> Some weekend reading for you all:
>
> http://whimsley.typepad.com/whimsley/2012/05/open-data-movement-redux-tribes-and-contradictions.html
>
> best,
>
> Tom
>
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